What I Like About You
by JustALilSnail
Summary: What I like about you. Or, alternatively, what I see in Will/Travis. 1st person


Someone send me a comment on ao3 asking why I ship Willvis and that is a very good question! To answer your question: I don't really know either! I like crack ships. I ship by how much I like the characters. If I like the characters well enough then I don't mind them in a pairing. But someone on Reddit called my shipping style 'empty' and that ships with lots of canon interactions are far better. (Which, yeah, I agree. Noremma and NanaEiji kill me every time they're together.) But I love the freedom I get with crack pairs! Which is where fanfiction comes in. Behold! The potential I see in Travis and Will and how their dynamic works in my mind.

* * *

[Travis]

Travis Stoll. Son of Hermes. Head Counselor. A prankster. Can pickpocket and steal like no other, a prodigy in that sense.

A decent swordsman.

A slightly above average bowsman.

And absolutely incapable of being remotely serious.

Even when the situation direly calls for it. Even on the verge of death, is too lax. Even seconds away from passing out, got to get one last joke in. Even when I'm about to nag his ears off for being too careless, will nod attentively with a stupid, stupid grin and do the stupid, stupid thing again.

Ask me what I find attractive about Travis, and I'll definitely say its not his unhealthy love for pranks. His desire for some 'fun in his very boring life as a yearrounder' sometimes (most times) bringing only pain and misery and even acrimony. And even though he apologizes, the very next day he's doing it again.

Travis doesn't learn. Not from lectures. Not from mistakes. Not from him or Chiron. Only Connor can change his behaviors (and Connor doesn't. Connor only just encourages and pushes Travis to go further by bringing Travis's ideas to fruition.)

Travis is tactless. He jokes around when no one should be and he says stuff that never needs to be said. 'No, Travis, you shouldn't be joking about how Clarisse is a chicken for not wanting to enter the labyrinth again. And you shouldn't be joking about your dead half-brother actually being Olympus's savior when he was the one to start it all. And you really shouldn't be joking about breaking into the camp store in such precise detail when Chiron is right there.' But he still does it.

Travis is careless too. How does someone set landmines on the wrong hill? Seriously? When there are only so many hills at camp? And that time during the 2nd titan war when he wanted to raid a candy store, who the heck thinks of such things in the middle of a freaking war?! I wonder sometimes how he made it this far in life with his attitude. Maybe it's his brother. Connor's (only slightly) more level headed than Travis.

But even though Travis can be too casual at times, and too careless, and his morals sometimes delve too much into the grey, he's a kind friend and a kind brother.

He likes to have fun. To live life to the fullest. To laugh and smile as much as he possibly can. To never waste a second regretting the past. Even when some of his pranks backfire on him or when he gets caught and cursed, he doesn't dwell on it for too long. I met people who said they don't look in the past, but Travis is the only one I know who commits to it. Snide comments. Unkind gestures. The Sneering and taunting he'll get from other campers simply for being Luke's half-brother back during the Second Titan War. He really doesn't linger on any of that even though it gets my blood boiling.

He doesn't hold a grudge towards any of them and that's admirable. If it was me, I would have made them beg for my forgiveness, maybe made them do some of my side chores. It grates on my nerves whenever I recall those years. The fact that he refused Luke even though he's his brother, even though almost all of his siblings followed Luke, even though he knows first hand how neglectful the gods are, Travis still refused. That counts for something.

Travis is also stupidly powerful. I don't know anyone who can get into so much trouble yet still find a way out. 90% of the time, he gets away with his pranks because nobody can prove he and Connor set it up. That takes skills. He once moved live mines from Ares cabin to the other side of camp. Not anyone can just move landmines but he somehow did.

He has a soft side too. It's not really hidden, but it's not really apparent either. I can see it whenever he welcomes a new camper to his cabin. Or whenever he says goodbye to a newly claimed camper. Although I find it debatable when Travis teaches his cabinmates how to beat anyone at poker, he truly offers them a home in his cabin.

And whenever he tried to teach me how to pickpocket or how to lie with a straight face or even shoot an arrow, he's so patient. Even though I am so bad at it, he doesn't laugh or make fun of me. He doesn't give up on me even though I never make progress.

I try.

I really, truly do try to aim, but after years of faulted attempts, most people give up on me. Even Chiron did eventually. But Travis would still follow me to the archery range. Travis would still be in the same room as me as everyone else hurries to leave. Travis would still stay as my arrows go everywhere but the bullseye. Travis would still give me advice. Travis would still follow me again the next day even if I utterly failed today.

"It's okay," he would say calmly as an arrow thunk a centimeter to the right of his knee cap, "You don't have to be perfect at everything you do."

I'll admit, Travis worries me some time with how carefree he can be and he may be morally gray at times, but when it comes down to it, he just wants people to know life is fun.

And I guess that's what I like about him.

* * *

[Will]

Will Solace.

What can I say about the Will Solace? He's a son of Apollo. He's blond. He has blue eyes. And he can be a total prick, but I guess that's what draws me to him.

Will is talented at so many things, but he also sucks at many things.

Do you all know Will is very bad at thievery? Pickpocketing, lockpicking, even just lying or fibbing, he's bad at it all. He can't keep a straight face and will starts talking faster and faster and faster. It's adorable. He's so honest and righteous, I don't know why he ever liked someone as dishonest and shifty as me.

Back during the battle in Manhattan when I volunteered to get some medical supplies, Will actually told me to leave money. Who the heck thinks about businesses when we're right smack in the middle of the battle of the century? Will Solace, that's who. Only Will Solace.

Oh, and Will is bad at being… what's the word? Compassionate? Kind? Merciful? Sympathetic! He's not very sympathetic when it is absolutely needed. He's blunter than unsharpen pencils. Normally, he's a chill person but if someone is being bullheaded, out comes his fangs. He says what he thinks even though he doesn't know the full picture. When he told Nico di Angelo that the camp's dislike of him was all in his head, I wanted to wince. I know Will means well but he didn't had Nico living in his cabin for a couple of months.

People were scared of him. People did avoid him. Maybe nobody outright confronted him, but they all certainly gave him a lot of space. When it was game night, only Connor or I would partner up with him. It wasn't all in his head.

Will is that way with everybody.

Luckily for me, I have skin made of titanium. Years of pranking and getting caught and suffering the worst humiliation I ever can has made me immune to all criticizations.

"Travis, you're never going to make friends if you piss everybody off with your pranks. Travis you can't keep using comedy as your coping mechanism for everything. Travis, stop bottling everything up and talk to someone."

I admit Will can be pushy and forward, but his heart is in the right place. He just has an indelicate way of showing it.

Will is also awful at archery. He's remarkably bad actually. It's one of the few things he's insecure about. He can be surprisingly fragile when it comes to that. Hours of training and nothing comes out of it. I feel like when Apollo was deciding what to gift Will in, rather than distribute it evenly across healing, archery, music and prophetic abilities, Apollo just shove all he can into healing.

Maybe that's why Will is so great in his medic role. He is the best healer of this millennia. I don't know how his whole healing power works but it's crazy taxing on him. And the more monster related the wound is, the more power it takes to heal it. He almost passed out trying to heal Annabeth back in Manhattan. You would think Will the health fanatic, the perpetual worrywart, the 'If you shadow travel one more time, I'm going to seriously handcuff my arm to yours' Will Solace would limit himself. But no. The guy goes and goes till he gets the job done. Either the person is healed or he passes out.

I wish he wouldn't do that.

I wish he knows it's okay to not be 100% perfect.

Will tries more than anyone I know. I would have given up archery after a month of training and no improvement. Just write it off as a lack of talent, you know? But not Will. He goes and goes till his fingers are blistered and his arms ache.

Will is incredible sort of in that way. He's incredibly hardworking. He's incredibly ethical. And he's incredibly nice.

Will genuinely cares for everyone. Even for someone like Octavian who was seconds away from destroying our home. I'm kind of ashamed to admit this but I would have let Octavian go. I might have even lighted the cannon myself if given the chance. Because if it was Octavian's life over my brother's, over my siblings, over my friends, over Will's, I wouldn't hesitate.

Will is genuinely nice, remarkably nice, even to someone like me, to someone like Octavian, to the point I worry if he'll be taken advantage of.

But his unconditional kindness is what I like about him.

* * *

(Tell me what you think! Good, bad, okay, down to hell, up to heaven, or just plain nothing. I'm okay with it all.)


End file.
